RUBENS, Pieter Pauwel
(b. 1577, Siegen, d. 1640, Antwerpen)

The Four Continents

c. 1615
Oil on canvas, 209 x 284 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The four continents, personified as female figures, are found in the art of the Counter-Reformation where their commonest function, especially in Jesuit churches, is to serve as a reminder of the world-wide spread of Catholic Christendom.